Where does the cocoa plant come from? What are the origins of chocolate? Why was it called food of the gods? Everything you need to know about cocoa!

We are Cioccolatitaliani, we deeply love chocolate, and we want to explain why. We retraced the entire history of this magical plant, the cocoa plant, its first discovery, its arrival in Europe, and the creation of the first chocolate bar. Get comfortable. The history of cocoa is about to begin.

The origins of chocolate, from the Maya to European chocolate shops

In how many forms can you find and enjoy chocolate today? Several, maybe too many. And to think that in the beginning, chocolate was primarily used for drinking only! It took centuries before the first chocolate bar was made and sold. Let's start from the beginning and shed some light on the history of cocoa.

The cocoa plant, and indigenous peoples, the Maya and the Aztecs

Two thousand years ago, somewhere in Central America, a native tribesman found an oval-shaped fruit in a rainforest that protruded from the branch of a smooth-trunk tree. He opened the pod and found a white, fragrant, sweet mucilage (cocoa butter) and several beans (cocoa beans), that he extracted and took with him. He peeled the beans in a rudimentary way and then placed them to roast. Discovering their rich aroma, he created the first chocolate beverage. This is where the history of cocoa and the first chocolatiers began. The history of the first pre-Columbian chocolatiers is not very different from that of the tribesman mentioned above. Indeed, the first evidence of cocoa processing dates back to a period between 1800 and 1400 BC in Central America and Mexico. Archaeological finds, demonstrated that the processing of cocoa already existed at the time.

The Mayan history is also intertwined with cocoa.

Despite the limited evidence of the Maya civilization and its city-states, we know how important cocoa was for these people. Archaeological finds, specifically illustrations, show some Mayan deities holding cocoa beans (this is why it was called the food of the gods). Also, the paintings found in the tombs of the elite, such as the one found in Guatemala and dating back to 600 BC. shows a woman pouring chocolate from one container to another, probably to produce foam. For the Maya, cocoa was also important from an economic point of view. In some regions, cocoa beans were also used as currency to buy small items. When the Conquistadores arrived in Central America, they found themselves facing a very flourishing civilization: the Aztecs, who managed to prosper in the region immediately after the fall of the Maya. Even for this civilization, cocoa gradually acquired great importance. From being considered a drink of the upper classes, chocolate became a commodity and currency to pay taxes and wages.

What happened when the Conquistadores arrived?

Conquistadores, arrival in Europe and the first production of chocolate

If you think that cocoa immediately appealed to the Conquistadores, you are wrong. It took time for the chocolate to arrive in Europe. Europeans had to get used to the novelty. Only after several years, the Conquistadores began to understand and appreciate Central American customs and traditions fully, and it was only then that they fell in love with cocoa.

The first in Europe to taste cocoa was the king of Spain, Philip II. In 1544, a delegation of Kekchi Maya visiting Spain offered large containers of chocolate to the king. He tasted it and found it interesting.

Chocolate began its great journey throughout Europe from Spain, passing through Italy and the Medici court. Almost simultaneously, it arrived in England together with coffee and tea. And then France, especially in the period when king Louis XIV and the Infanta of Spain Maria Theresa married. Thanks to this wedding, chocolate was officially introduced in France, and the chocolate drink spread very quickly among all social classes. Only in the 1800s, with the industrial revolution cocoa will become the chocolate we all know.

It was a dynamic, exciting era, with technological discoveries and industrial ferment. Everything heralded great inventions, such as chemist Coenraad Johannes van Houten's one. In his laboratory in Amsterdam, in 1828, the Dutch scientist invented the first hydraulic press capable of separating cocoa butter from cocoa mass, obtaining a sort of powdered chocolate block.

A sensational invention, to say the least, that started a sort of chocolate revolution. Johannes van Houten's Coenraad hydraulic press was followed by the creation that we all still love today: the first chocolate bar by the Fry family in 1847, an invention so important that during the Victorian period, the Fry company became the largest producer of chocolate in the world. Do you think the roundup of chocolate-related inventions is over? You're mistaken. Names are about to arrive that you cannot fail to know.

We are talking about Heinrich Nestlè, the Swiss chemist who, in 1867, discovered the evaporation process that allowed milk to become powder and then return to liquid form when mixed with water. Daniel Peter used this discovery, and in 1879, by combining milk powder with chocolate, he created the first milk chocolate bar.

Together with Nestlè and Peter, it is worth mentioning Rudolph Lindt. A Swiss innovator who managed to bring his nation to the Olympus of chocolate thanks to the invention of the conching machine: a final phase of the chocolate production in which the raw material is beaten against the walls of a basin, over and over again, until it becomes a creamy, fluid and velvety substance.

From this moment on, the production of chocolate became so great and proved so necessary for the economy of the producing countries that it passed directly to the industrial level without ever stopping today.

Cioccolatitaliani loves chocolate and controls its production step by step in each of its laboratories where each creation is the result of knowledge of the raw material, and experience in its processing. Chocolate has no secrets for us, come and find out why.